summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
Anybody read this magnus opus ?
The GOT Book Club
- Thread starter chicoazul
- Start date
Just finished the book: The Long Walk - Stephen King.
I was really interested in this book, as it was his first ever novel from well over forty years ago.
It’s not as polished as his later stuff, but that rawness and his anger that shone out in it , made it a really good, but brutal read.
To its credit, the film pretty much follows the book (apart from a slight change at the the end ) and translates really well onto screen too.
The current state of Trumps America made it all the more unsettling reading it too.
Tony Hibbert's Wife
Player Valuation: £1.5m
Since Christmas:
Carrie - Stephen King. I've never read King before and saw it in the library so decided to give it a whirl. Thought it was a decent page-turner, but not particularly scary. Not sure if it was meant to be scary. It's one of those where you can skim large sections and miss nothing of substance. I've never seen the film so may give it a watch now. 6/10
Monsters and Mainframes - Barbara Truelove. It's ostensibly a sci-fi/classic horror cross. It's the story of a spaceship where the passengers keep dying due to the actions of classic horror monsters (dracula, werewolf etc.) Written from various perspectives, primarily the ship's AI and medical AI.
It's badly written, often employing the modern speech patterns most often seen in social media postings (has a very Reddit speech feel), the characters all sound almost identical, the story is tiresome and tedious and I gave up 30 pages from the end as I didn't give a stuff about the conclusion. 2/10
Just started Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz which has a similar writing style so we'll see how that goes.
Carrie - Stephen King. I've never read King before and saw it in the library so decided to give it a whirl. Thought it was a decent page-turner, but not particularly scary. Not sure if it was meant to be scary. It's one of those where you can skim large sections and miss nothing of substance. I've never seen the film so may give it a watch now. 6/10
Monsters and Mainframes - Barbara Truelove. It's ostensibly a sci-fi/classic horror cross. It's the story of a spaceship where the passengers keep dying due to the actions of classic horror monsters (dracula, werewolf etc.) Written from various perspectives, primarily the ship's AI and medical AI.
It's badly written, often employing the modern speech patterns most often seen in social media postings (has a very Reddit speech feel), the characters all sound almost identical, the story is tiresome and tedious and I gave up 30 pages from the end as I didn't give a stuff about the conclusion. 2/10
Just started Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz which has a similar writing style so we'll see how that goes.
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Just finished Stephen King’s Bill Hodges trilogy; Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers & End of Watch.
I read Mr.Mercedes a while back and was a bit lukewarm on it so took me a while to get to the other two, but glad I did.
Really enjoyed them. ‘Finders Keepers’ probably the pick of the three for me.
Will probably read the follow up ‘Holly Gibney’ series now as well.
I read Mr.Mercedes a while back and was a bit lukewarm on it so took me a while to get to the other two, but glad I did.
Really enjoyed them. ‘Finders Keepers’ probably the pick of the three for me.
Will probably read the follow up ‘Holly Gibney’ series now as well.
The Holly books are much better. The character is more likeable in the more standalone books and I enjoyed reading them far more.
I've started the 2nd book in the Hierarchy series -
So far, enjoying it a lot, one of those that's easy and interesting to read so it gives me the "one more chapter won't hurt" experience
So far, enjoying it a lot, one of those that's easy and interesting to read so it gives me the "one more chapter won't hurt" experience
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
Has been known to happen.
Nuclear War: A Scenario, by Annie Jacobsen
“Nuclear War: A Scenario, describes the horrifying, minute-by-minute reality of a hypothetical nuclear conflict, detailing how a first strike escalates to global war within minutes, potentially causing mass death and a subsequent nuclear winter. The book, based on interviews with military and nuclear policy experts, emphasizes the critical decisions made in seconds based on incomplete information, the potential for widespread destruction, and the need to rid the world of such weapons.“
Without doubt the most terrifying book I’ve ever read.
Annie Jacobsen is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who’s spent the past few years interviewing current and retired politicians, military, defence contractors, scientists and the like to put together scenario of just what would happen if the US was hit by a ‘bolt from the blue’ (unprovoked) nuclear missile attack.
The book takes place over the course of 72 minutes, starting by breaking down the first seconds of an ICBM launch, to the detection, response and impact. There are also chapters on the history of nuclear war and deterrence peppered throughout.
In short, it’s all so much worse than you’d imagine. Like way worse.
ICBM’s don’t have any sort of kill switch or deactivation code like you see in the movies. Once they’re away, that’s it. And once it finishes the boost phase of flight, they are next to impossible to shoot down.
If you survive the attack (unlikely) don’t expect help. First responders won’t come within 50 miles of the affected area for weeks. Even then there’s not enough staff and resources to deal with all the injured.
Think you can survive by seeking shelter in a home made bunker or into the subway?
Unlucky, if you are within 20 miles of ground zero, expect 1-200mph fire storms consuming all in their path. Sucking up all the oxygen and either asphyxiating or slow broiling anyone underground.
And it only gets worse from there.
Absolutely fantastic book, but expect nightmares for several weeks after…
Just finished this.
It`s without doubt the most terrifying and disturbing book I`ve ever read, it`s also brilliantly written and almost reads like a novel.
I genuinely couldn`t put it down, it was so terrifying, but fascinating as the global apocalypse unravelled.
I read it over two days and hadt rouble sleeping both nights afterwards.
I`ll also add the very simple and real " pretend " scenario from the book, that could lead to the end of the world :
Without warning or reason, North Korea launches a nuclear warhead at Washington.
America fail to shoot it down and launch a massive retaliatory strike against North Korea.
North Korea launch another nuke, this one is aimed at a nuclear power plant in California, which causes the reactor to meltdown.
The American nukes, have to pass through Russian airspace to get to North Korea and due to a breakdown in communications, the Russians believe that they are under attack and launch everything they`ve got at America and the Nato Countries.
The Americans and Nato, then launch their mother load of weapons at Russia.
North Korea detonates an Electro Magnetic Nuclear Bomb masquerading as a satellite in space, above America, which knocks out the gas, electricity, phone networks, internet, water, oil, railways, airlines, basically everything, as the same time as all the bombs are landing. The whole infrastructure in America collapses in minutes.
THE END OF THE WORLD, in 35 minutes.
It`s without doubt the single most terrifying thing that I`ve ever read and every single politician in the Western World, should be made to read it.
It really makes you realise how little the Western powers really know about North Korea and what they`re up to and how they`d be pretty much powerless to stop this happening if North Korea decided that it wanted to start WW3 for the " glory of the nation "
There's a part where she's talking about survivors of the first bomb and how the majority of surviving casualties of a nuclear attack are people with burns severe enough to require treatment in a specialist 'burn bed' to have any chance of survival.
But that's all a pipe dream anyway as the number of burn casualties would be in the multiple tens of thousands and there's only about 2000 of the beds across the entire USA and probably under 10 thousand in the entire world.
Every single part of it is an absolute nightmare.
In other news Trump is readying to attack Iran again, so yay...
I came to the conclusion, that it would be better to go out in the first wave and be vaporised than all of the other scenarios.
carlos21
KING OF REP
Hiya bren.In other news Trump is readying to attack Iran again, so yay...
Yo Carlos.
Long time no see buddy, hows you?
carlos21
KING OF REP
I am good today when you have got a minute private message me kid.
carlos21
KING OF REP
You been working hard.